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by literaryladytype



Category: Lumberjanes
Genre: Adoption!, Discussion of Emotional Abuse by Parents, F/F, Some Swearing, What if Diane and Molly were friends, anxiety attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 19:58:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21397813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryladytype/pseuds/literaryladytype
Summary: In which adult, married Molly and Mal go to a meeting to start looking into the adoption process, and all their friends tag along to help them out, including someone unexpected.
Relationships: Mal/Molly (Lumberjanes)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27





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**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning: discussion of emotional abuse by parents and it's effects, anxiety/anxiety attack?, 2 mentions of greek myth style torture.
> 
> This is also based on a headcanon I have that Diane and Molly become friends and they help each other through both of their parents being horrible and also at one point Diane gives Molly a golden bow and arrow again. 
> 
> I know this isn't the best writing in the world, and a lot of it gets very convoluted, but I love these characters and figured it might be nice to contribute something? These comics are just so so good and they really helped me when I was younger coming to terms with being a lesbian.

"Just sit right over here, folks. Mrs. and Mrs. Yoo, you'll be able to have your appointment in just a moment."  
Mal, Molly, April, Jo, and Jen were all stuffed into a very, very small waiting room, filled with adoption pamphlets and posters with stock photos of happy children lining the walls.

Adoption.

Molly could feel her brain whirring faster and faster around in dangerous circles, her breath getting less and less constant.

“I..." Molly said to Mal. "I have to- I need to take a moment."

She opened the door, her hands still shaking.

Mal tried to go after her, but Jo said something into her ear and she stopped. 

She closed the door and sat down on a bench outside. 

She felt like a siren was going off in her head. 

You're going to be just like her, a voice in her head said. 

Just like her.

Molly Powell, a mother?! An arrow would probably end up in the baby. 

This is the girl who jumped into a land before time with out a second thought. 

Every part of her body was tense, and she couldn't stop shaking. 

Stupid stupid stupid stupid. 

She put her head in her hands. What had ever made her think she could do this? Who did she think she was?

"Molly?" A voice called.

She looked up to see Diane standing in the hallway. 

Diane, who’d seen all of them climb into Mal’s old car and laughed at them.

“What, are you all adopting a child?”

Jo had to hold April back from punching her.

Molly tried to school her face into some kind of no-there's-no-way-I-could-be-freaking-out-right-now expression, and apparently she failed, because all she got was a worried look in return.

"Um." Diane said. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, yeah, I'm fine, this is one of the happiest moments in my life, I should be fine-"

“Seriously, if you don’t want a kid, I know Mal isn't going to push anything onto you. You’re in love.”

“Or whatever,”she tacked on. 

(She was getting worse at that.)

(Cynicism.)

Molly shook her head automatically. She wanted this, she did. 

“You want a kid? Or Mal isn’t listening to you, because, listen, I can kick that punk’s ass until she reaches Tartarus. You know Greek myths, right? I can make Prometheus’ torture look like a nice little birdwatching trip compared to what I’m going to do-“

Molly put a finger to her lips and Diane stopped. 

“Can I-“Diane motioned her arm going around her.

Molly nodded, and Diane pulled her close, her breathing steadying. 

Diane’s heartbeat, however, was not.

“You got to talk to me,”she said softly, trying to meet Molly’s eyes.

“How?”Molly replied finally, her eyes turned down and her voice cracking.

“How can I do this, Diane? She’s still in my brain, even after all this time. She’s still in my thoughts. If I pass even a thimble full of the kind of shit she gave me, and it’s so- it’s just, some days it feels engraved in my soul, that self-hate and I don’t think it ever will go away, if I pass even a fraction of that on to my child I could never... I could never live with myself.”

The office door creaks open a crack and Mal peeks her head out, knocking on her side of the door as if asking to join them.

“You know how doors work, right?”Diane says sharply.

“Hi to you too, Diane,”Mal says tiredly, sitting in the other side of Molly and holding her hand.”Are we talking about her?”

Diane nods. 

“Okay,” Diane starts. “Here’s my two cents. Your argument is stupid.”

Mal raises her eyebrows and Molly gives her a confused look.

“Diane, don’t call Molly stupid, what the-“

“Cool it, Romeo. She’s not stupid. Her idea is stupid. We aren’t our parents- or at least, we don't have to be. Have you seen my father? He is petulant and prideful and I am still getting over his overblown ego. He's the father of probably more deities than a person could count, and all his children hate his guts- secretly, openly, whatever. And some of them are exactly like him anyway, they just don't realize it. And I’m still more like him than I’d like to admit. With the pride. And the petulance.”

“You’re not that bad,”Molly mumbles. 

“I mean...”Mal says, disagreeing lightly.

“Well, gee, thanks you two.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean-“Molly started.

“Save it. Some of us try, though, you know? To not be like him, because we know the damage it does. Apollo and I, we made a pact, that if one of us is getting way too lightning-bolts-and-cheating-on-your-wife-and-threatening-torture-y-"

Molly side eyes her.

"Shut up, that was out of protection."

Molly makes an unconvinced face.

"Okay, yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say I would get some birds to rip out your wife's liver-"

"Wait, WHAT?"Mal says, her eyes wide as Molly puts an arm around her.

"ANYWAY,"Diane starts,"We said we would tell each other when we got be too much like Dad. And granted, usually whenever one of us tells the other one it ends in some death threats, but, like we're gods, so what is he really gonna do, you know? And like a week later, or a couple decades, one of us apologize, and it works out!"

"Why is your family so weird..."Mal mumbles.

"Diane..."

"Ugh, just listen- I’m more like my father than you’re like your mother because you’re fucking nothing like her, and that thing you said about never forgiving yourself if you did even a bit of what she did to you to your kid- that’s why I know you won’t. You hold yourself up to an insanely high standard, and all of your friends- all of, uh, us will be there to back you up. You won’t. You are dedicated, and accountable, and you are not her. As far as I’m concerned, blood doesn't have to mean anything.”

“But-“

"No.” Diane says to her decisively, as Mal shakes her head like there's a piece to the puzzle that everyone has except for Molly. 

"No,"Mal repeats.

"Me. The girl who was so clumsy in the cave of mythical anagram doom that she got her friends almost killed not once but twice?"

"The girl who saved her friends way more than than that?" Mal says.

"The girl who created a time warp when she was fourteen years old?" Molly replies.

"The girl who befriended a lonely raccoon within an hour of being at camp and started petting a three-eyed fox monster in the middle of a fight?" Mal replies. She could do this all day. 

"That just shows a reckless amount of trust, not that I'm trying to be good person or brave."

"Sometimes they're the same thing."

Molly sighed. 

"You are so brave, Mol. You are brave because you come back to your friends and you still ask for help and you still are so kind even when multiple dimensions seem like they’re working against you. And that's nothing you learned from your mother, but it’s what will make you an amazing mom.”

A tear ran down Molly’s cheek.

“Stop saying nice things about me,” she protests weakly. “You’re making me cry.”

“Make me,” Mal replies, so cute and so immediate, her eyebrows raising, like they’re back at camp and kids again, that Molly has to kiss her.

“I hope our kid is like you,”Mal says between breaths, cradling her hands, and Molly's heart breaks in the best way possible.

“Okaaaay, this is my cue,” Diane says, getting up and walking towards the door. 

“Wait, Diane, we can stop,” Mal says, as Molly reaches for Diane’s hand and Diane lets herself be led back. 

“I get it, though, you know?”Diane says. “It's okay to be scared or whatever. I’d be terrified.”

"She says after continuously berating me for my self doubt." Molly quips.

"Hey, I can always tell Mal that you had such a huge crush on her that when ever you had to write the word music you put a heart over the-" 

“Shut up!”

“Wait what? Babe, I thought I heard all your embarrassing stories.”

"Well, apparently they’re never ending.”

"Hah! I knew it was true!"

"Diane!" She hissed under her breath playfully, her heart trying to mend.

"You know,"Mal says to her, "this is basically just an informational meeting. Adoption is a really long process, we don't have to decide anything today."

"Yeah,"Molly says."Yeah, okay."

Jo’s head peeks out from the door and knocks on the wrong side again, as Diane rolls her eyes.

“Oh my gods, does being nice force you to forget how doors work?”

“Diane?”Jo questions, her brow furrowing.

“Yes, I came for moral support, it’s a surprise to me too.”

“Is everything ok?”Jo asks Molly.

“It might be,”Molly says.

“That’s the spirit!” Diane half-shouts, elbowing her. 

“Jesus Christ.” Mal mumbles.

“Okay, so are y’all coming back in? Because Ripley is trying to stall for you and it’s not going-“

A large crash comes from the office.

“...well.”

“Oh no.”

Molly comes back in the room with steady (well, steadier) breaths and her friend’s and her wife’s affirmations to put agaisnt her thought spirals. Doubt and anxiety will come up again, but she won’t be alone in it.

They're my family, she thinks. It’s not the first time she’s thought it, or said it, or had it said to her but it feels 5 degrees more believable. She's met monsters who are nicer and more human than her mother, and this is real. 

“As far as I’m concerned” Diane had said, “blood doesn't have to mean anything.”

This is real, not just a summer fantasy that feels like a hallucination after a few months and turns into a mangled memory until the next gasp of fresh air she takes the next session at camp. 

She doesn’t have to do that anymore, because this her home.

A small smile catches on Molly’s lips and she takes Mal's hand.

Home.


End file.
